Construction crews jump in to help fires next to site
By Ava Kershner
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DEL MAR, California (KGTV) — The red stain of fire retardant covers Mira Montana Drive in Del Mar and the brush and cliffs next to Del Mar Heights School.
“It’s kind of a little scary when you see the flames jump that quick,” said Wayne Kibbe, Balfour Beatty’s General Superintendent.
The red is from Tuesday’s brush fire, discovered by a construction crew.
“And they’re like, but there’s a, there’s a fire hydrant right in front of our house, and we, me and Wayne, just looked at each other like, come on, let’s go,” said Chris Naumann, a Site Supervisor with Balfour Beatty’s Job.
Balfour Beatty construction workers working on an almost finished project at Del Mar Heights stopped what they were doing and started getting water to the flames.
“So at that point, myself and my teammates, we jumped in, ran the fire hose off the hydrant down at the end, and started putting it on the in-house that was closest to the fire, looking like it was coming up,” said Kibbe.
They also helped first responders secure the project site so their helicopter could land safely.
“I’ve been doing construction for a long time. This is the first time that we’ve had a, that I’ve been in a situation like this,” said Naumann.
When preparing for their interview with 10news about Tuesday’s fire, smoke started rising again.
“Today, we were prepping for you, and as we were standing out in the field, we noticed a little smoke coming up … We called our team back into action again to get our hoses up and going, just in case,” said Kibbe.
No injuries or burnt houses resulted from Thursday’s flare-up; it was just a crew of construction workers keeping their guard up to protect their community.
“…For our team to have our emergency plan in place, everybody [jumps] in to help and work together to do something that we don’t normally do was awesome,” said Kibbe.
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